Dark Age of War
by BanterHorse
Summary: In the aftermath of the Iron War, the 25th Millennium sees the downfall of a united human race as mankind rediscovers it's self destructive habits. Forewarned of the coming of a terrible Age of Strife, the remnants of mankind's unified military and government seek to weather the passage of time in stasis. But when they awaken, they find themselves in a galaxy that knows only war.
1. Precipice

**Prologue**

_Ultima-Segmentum, 345.651 M-25_

It is the uncertain darkness of the 25th Millenium, there is only tragedy. It has been six decades since the conclusion of the Iron War. When Mankind's own creations turned against their masters and unleashed a horrific crusade of genocide upon them. But humanity has triumphed, but the losses were beyond the count of grief, trillions slain, worlds burned, society crippled.

Mankind is now divided, it's unifying government, the Colonial Federation of Man, weakened terribly from the war, had been forced to leave Terra or else be destroyed by those who saw opportunity for power there. And now greater horrors lurk upon the horizon, as an age of terrible Strife, draws closer.

Fleet Admiral Tarson Kerensky looked out into the cold abyss of space from his cabin view-port. The ancient strains of Loch Lomond played from the small speakers built in the wall, adding a peaceful ambiance to the breathtaking vista.

Tarson was an elderly man, well into his third century but his physical appearance suggested he was late into his sixties. His short white hair was trimmed at regulation length, and if one looked closely it was evident that his left eye was artificial, tinted to match the others natural hazel color. He wore the grey officer uniform of the CFDF, with his rank proudly displayed on shoulder boards and collar pins.

Tarson could make out the dark grey hulls of other ships that had followed him into exile, but the ones he could see were monstrous in size, tens of kilometers long super-capital ships. The vast majority of the fleet were made up of smaller civilian and military craft. Beyond those shapes loomed a large planet, it's surface lifeless and brown. It was here that mankind's future would be held secure through the great darkness looming on the horizon.

Kerensky had reservations about this venture, he was essentially abandoning trillions of humans to suffer an uncertain future, in order to save twenty-million souls. The reports coming in from the border zones of the Eldar Empire had been getting more dire through the recent century, the ancient alien superpower was currently undergoing what can only be described as civilization-wide insanity, and apparently a great exodus was underway, with millions escaping on the mighty craftworld trading ships. There was something growing in the Warp, FTL travel was already suffering complications from the warp storms growing higher in frequency, eventually it would reach a braking point. In that regard the Craftworld Eldar were right to jump ship, and it would be foolish not to follow their example.

That was why Kerensky had brought the CFDF so far into unexplored space, to distance the fleet from ground zero and hopefully have a better chance of riding out the dark times ahead.

The holotank on the table next to him lit up, and the image of a woman made from silvery light appeared above it, her skin was covered in streams of programming code, and her angelic features were morphed into a slight smile. This was Adeline, the ship's primary administrative Neuro AI adjutant. While the Men of Iron turned against mankind, Neuro AI like Adeline stood up to defend it. The Men of Stone had more than earned the trust of many in the fleet.

"Admiral, sir. Colonel Vanch is on the line from Rapture City."

For the last five months, engineering crews have been working around the clock to establish a massive underground complex within the planet's crust, and the process of interring spacecraft into dug out vaults was well underway. When completed, the facility will be able hold twenty-million people in cryo-storage, Rapture City was the name coined by many in the fleet.

"Put him on," Tarson commanded. Her image winked out to be replaced by a colored image of Colonel August Vanch, the man in charge of the massive subterranean colony and it's construction.

"What's the latest, Colonel?" He asked.

Vanch rubbed the back of his bald head, "Well, Admiral sir. Blocks thirty through fifty-four are open for business and we will be able to start icing non-essential personnel by week's end if the current rate of progress holds."

"You look like you have something else to say, Colonel," Tarson observed.

"Some of my men... they are starting to crack, there have been a few fights, nothing the marines could not handle, but being this far away from civilization, and abandoning Terra... well it's making everyone a little jumpy."

"Do what you can to maintain order," Tarson said firmly, "Warp storm activity is increasing, and it all points towards a super-massive event sometime soon, we need everything to be finished before that happens."

Vanch nodded, "Aye, sir. Do we know exactly what this event will do to the colonies?"

The Admiral was silent for a moment, "Nothing good. Send the rest of your report up, I will contact you later to discuss other matters before the staff meeting tomorrow. Until then Colonel."

The man snapped off a salute before his image vanished. As the ancient song wound down to a close, he wondered how much humanity will have changed after the next two or three millenia. Or if anyone would even recognize this song, or anything else from the past.

"Time will tell," he whispered to himself.


	2. Precipice II

Marine Corporal Ryan Taylor looked upwards from his position on the rim of the construction site of Rapture City. It was a massive hole in the earth twenty miles in diameter, that was surrounded by hundreds of deep trenches of varying lengths and depths. The trenches were made for the sole purpose of interring the massive starships of the CFDF government and military in exile. From his position he could clearly see a nine kilometer long battlecruiser slowly lowering itself into a trench with the aid of gravity tether projectors positioned on the ground beneath it, their green colored beams caressing it's hull as it descended.

Ryan was coming back from perimeter patrol, his grey hued power armor was covered in a patina of brown dust from the hours spent trekking the western rim of the construction site. Down below was a tangle of scaffolding and walkways leading to thousands of hab-units that were built into the walls of the hole like seeds in a papaya, using his helmet's vision enhancement mode he could pick out the forms of hundreds of thousands of human workers toiling endlessly alongside automated machines to construct this mother of all time capsules.

In another time, all of this work would be performed solely by machines, the Men of Iron had made human work crews obsolete in the centuries before the Iron War. They did not eat, they did not sleep, they required almost zero human maintenance, and best of all they did not need to be paid. Mankind had grown fat and weak with the absence of manual labor, the days of sweat and toil were long gone. Such hubris and laxity had ill prepared humanity for the day their synthetic servants violently rebelled.

Ryan had grown up in the post-war period, he had never fought against the Iron Men like some of the older veterans had, and from listening to the stories about their meticulous brutality and genocidal tendencies he was thankful that he had not. Ryan was much more used to dealing with the insurrectionists cells that had cropped up following the downfall of the Iron Men and the victory of Mankind. Selfish, dissatisfied colonists that felt they were not getting enough attention from the reconstruction efforts after the war, which had been focused on rebuilding the core worlds that had born the brunt of the war's devastation.

But now it was all in the past, after the military's withdrawal from the core worlds, mankind was tearing itself apart guided by the selfish ambitions of would-be conquerors and self-proclaimed emperors. It was a fight that could not be won, only lost. The Colonial Federation had saved mankind from the machines, only to be ousted by self-serving opportunists that wanted to have a go at ruling what was left of human space. After everything mankind has accomplished since traveling forth from Old Earth, why had it all come down to this?

He approached a bunker complex built just off the rim, it's gray wind beaten polycrete walls were angled, and reinforced with Plasteel-A struts, giving it a ribbed appearance. When he reached the airlock, it cycled open, allowing him to step into the small room.

_"Decontamination sequence in progress," _a synthetic male baritone announced.

A low hum announced the activation of a high-frequency electromagnetic sterilizing field, a thin translucent sheet of light appeared next to him, it advanced slowly, killing off any and all foreign microbes in the air and on his person. It made a few more passes from left to right before deactivating.

_"Decontamination complete, repressurization in progress."_

A loud hiss, and pale white plumes of atmosphere came from the ceiling and floor.

_"Repressurization complete."_

With a mental command, his helmet's HUD winked off, and the helmet split apart down the middle and folded down in segments into his armor's collar. The air smelled fresh here, not like the filtered, metallic tasting air his armor's life-support system constantly recycled. Ryan took a moment to get used to the feeling before he left the airlock.

He stepped into the guard post which was defended by two sentry turrets and four Army grunts dressed in slate grey semi-powered armored suits which were significantly less bulky than the fully powered suit Ryan was wearing. Their stances indicated boredom, they held their HK MP-7000's in loose grips. (Yes Heckler & Koch is still viable in the 25th Millennium)

"Hey shraphead, find anythin' out there?"

"Only the frakking sand," Ryan replied for the hundredth time since coming to this miserable ball of dust. He ignored the trooper and progressed further out of the guard post. He made his way to the middle of the complex where the armor block was located. It was a zone dedicated to servicing the vehicles that went out on patrol around this section of the construction zone. It was also where the marines stowed their power armor for cleaning and refurbishing.

Entering the armor block the first thing he noted was a bunch of techies trying to fit an arm into the shoulder socket of a Sentinel-class battle-walker. Sentinels were twenty-five foot tall engines of destruction dedicated to heavy fire-support duties. They were like baby titans in this regard. It vaguely resembled a humanoid shape, but it possessed a hunch-backed profile, and it's 'head' was a spherical shape bearing an optics cluster recessed into the torso. Underneath it's hunched back were the distinctive exhaust ports for a repulsor-lift jump system which enabled it to 'hop' up to ninety feet into the air in a 1G environment.

He looked at the impressive war machine for a moment before heading down to the armor locker so he could shed his suit and grab some dinner before hitting the rack.

* * *

"Ice naps are going to be scheduled soon," a man to the left of Ryan said as he dug into a plate of grox steak and mashed potatoes. His name was Warren Cain, a specialist in his squad. He had brown hair, a little darker than Ryan's and dull green eyes. He like Taylor was dressed in his digital pattern short-sleeved SCU (Standard Combat Uniform) which came in a variable shades of gray and tan.

"Did they say which groups are going in first?" Ryan asked as he popped a piece of red meat into his mouth.

"Well if this amazing meal is an indicator, it might be ours. But I think they will be freezing the non-essential personnel before working their way up. But people are still spooked, nobody has ever been in stasis for the amount of time we are going to be."

Ryan nodded, looking down at his tray. Was this some kind of last good meal before the plunge? Ryan was not ashamed to admit he was scared. He could handle gunfire and the uncertainty that accompanies the moments before the fighting starts; but stepping into a cryo-tube, to spend an undisclosed number of centuries, possibly millenia in stasis. He was practically leaving the world he knew behind for an unknowable future. And what if something went wrong? What if his life support failed and he died? Nobody would know, nobody would care.

Ryan gazed out of the window they were next to, it was in one of the middle levels of Rapture City, the window looked out into the twenty-mile wide chasm the walls of which were populated by the thousands of structures meant to house a population of sixty-million, in and out of cryo. It looked like one of those caves near his childhood home on Charybdis Prime, it's ceilings were coated with bio-luminescent worms that glowed an unearthly white, just like the lit window ports of so many hab-modules.

"What other choice is there?" Ryan asked.

"None I guess," Cain said, "It's like the Old Man said, humanity is fucked and we are the only chance our race has to make a comeback after this 'big event' everyone is talking about. The one that's driving them space elves mad."

Ryan cringed mentally at the mention of the Eldar. Those guys were set to lose even more than mankind if the rate their empire was crumbling was anything to go by. Though the aliens had never been friends to humanity, and their arrogance knew no boundaries, Ryan could not help but sympathize with them.

"What do you think we are going to find? After we wake up." Ryan asked.

Warren set his spoon down and concentrated for a moment, "I don't know man, but whatever it is, it can't be worse than what is happening already."

A growing sense of unease filled Ryan, he did not know why, but something in him knew that the future would be nothing like anything they had ever seen before, and he could tell that things were going to get really ugly before they ever got prettier.

"I'm not taking that bet," Ryan said, still looking at his plate. He had suddenly lost his appetite.

* * *

**Codex: The Ancients**

_Sentinel Battle-Walker: _An STC design created during the Iron War, the true Sentinel towers over it's poorly conceived Imperial counterpart by ten feet, and accommodates firepower that makes it a match for the Riptide battlesuits used by the Tau Empire. It is capable of operation in environments of up to five standard Gees and can even operate in zero-G. The Sentinel was created to contend with the overwhelming numbers of the Iron Men and their own heavy walkers. Sentinels often work in pairs, to maximize the coverage of their firepower while still remaining a highly mobile force. It wasn't until after the Iron War ended that the design was optimized to include repulsor-lift jump jets and atomantic shielding. (P.S. If you have ever played Titanfall, the Sentinel's appearance and role should sound familiar.)


	3. Precipice III

Two months later, Rapture City was complete. Every ship in the fleet had been interred into their underground tombs. All personnel had been moved into the city itself, where they would be put into cryostasis in groups of thousands.

The mood was somber and mournful, men and women did their daily routines and went to sleep, only to rise knowing that they were one day closer to leaving the world they knew behind forever. And they knew there was no turning back.

Admiral Kerensky now stood on a podium to address his people before the first person entered stasis, to say what needed to be said in an attempt to bolster their confidence for this endeavor, that their sacrifice was for the greater good of the human race.

He was garbed in full grey dress uniform, a myriad of campaign ribbons, and medals flowed over his left breast polished to a high sheen for the occasion. The first group stood assembled before him, each and every one had been randomly chosen from a pool of volunteers for the honor of being put into stasis first, to show their brothers and sisters in arms that there was nothing to be afraid of.

"Men and women of the Colonial Federation Defense Forces," he began, his voice amplified to fill the vast chamber, and broadcasted to be heard by millions, "Today I address you not as your commanding officer, nor as head of our fallen state, but as a citizen of mankind. Our race is faced with the most terrible of trials and tribulations. The Bible has labeled this time as Armageddon, the end of humanity as we know it. And that is why we are here, to prevent our own extinction."

He paused and scanned the width of the room, he saw only the faces of people hanging on his every word, needing to hear this madness justified.

"This is all mankind has left. The Iron War has left our people weakened and divided, petty dictators and would-be emperors now rush to Terra to fulfill their childish fantasies with armies of yes-men and fanatics on their tails. And now disaster of unimaginable magnitude is poised to make any possible resolution to this crisis completely meaningless."

His good eye watered slightly from emotion, the thoughts of what was to happen breaking through his stony facade, "Damnation has come to the galaxy, and everything good and wholesome will be gone."

Then his gaze hardened, "But we shall remain!" He exclaimed, making some flinch with the force of his proclamation, "The human thirst for excellence, knowledge, and will to endure shall continue on in the hearts of every man, woman, and child in this city, this time capsule, to a future that has none of those things!"

"Through all the chaos that has defined our history, through all the trials, through every step up the ladder of science, and every adventurous reach into the unknown from Old Earth and beyond, there is one thing that has nourished the cause of Mankind and carried our species from one planet to a million, and that is our courage! The will to never give in!"

He spread his arms wide for emphasis, "The hopes and dreams of our race will be carried upon our backs to save a future from madness and despair."

"May we all live to see mankind redeemed, God speed, and good luck to you! Company dismissed!" He saluted them, and they all, as one, erupted into cheers.

* * *

The lower levels of Rapture City were composed of millions of stasis tubes, each one meant to cradle a single human life through the ravages of time. One by one, men, women, and children were led into these imposing plasteel cylinders and put into a deep dreamless sleep.

Ryan Taylor had been stripped naked, and put into a line of likewise unclothed men and women, fellow enlisted and superior officers alike, herded into the tubes. Nobody spoke, or even acknowledged one another, after all the preparation, counseling, and reflection the true depth of the undertaking had finally sunk in. Their lives were over.

Everything that had been familiar was going to be nothing more than a comforting memory when they woke up; if they woke up at all.

All of these painful realizations were endured in silence however. As he was laid down inside of his assigned tube, he wondered if this is what lying in a death bed felt like. In the end, it isn't what one has done that comes to haunt a person in their final moments; but it is what one has not done that forms most of the regret.

As the lid of his tube lowered over his body, his memories flashed through his childhood on the farm. His tenure as a soldier of the CFDF. Memories of parents whose graves he will never see again, of a lovely girl named Anessa with whom he had never worked up the guts to ask out. But now he would never get the chance to do the things he had always dreamed of doing, because for all intents and purposes today he was going to die. And his afterlife would in all likelihood bring him only more pain.

As the cryogenic gasses flooded his tube, Ryan closed his eyes and whispered, "Mother," before he was embraced by the darkness.

* * *

The End came swiftly upon the winds of Chaos. Upon the millions of worlds that made up the Eldar Empire, a scene of absolute insanity was being played out upon every city, every ship, and every home. Fathers and Mothers turned upon sons and daughters, sacrificing them to a nameless deity. Wives wantonly threw themselves at other men, carelessly breaking lifebonds that have lasted centuries. Children roamed in packs on the streets, armed with knives and blunt weapons, bringing down adults and cutting them to pieces.

Innumerable cults dedicated to pleasure drowned themselves in their mysticism and fornication. The accumulated filth of their perversion and wickedness foamed about them and onto the streets where their kin hunted one another while cackling in idiotic joy.

The Eldar Empire had fallen.

The upheaval pierced all layers of society, and the darkest parts of the Eldar soul were laid bare for all to see. And none seemed to care, or have anything to say in their defense. The last of their sane kib had already fled. Born upon the wraithbone hulls of immense Craftworlds, or sequestering themselves at the very edge of the galaxy to pursue simpler, honest lives.

But the end had come. The depravity of these darkened, lost souls could be sustained no longer. For their sin had breathed new, terrible, life into the very fabric of the Warp.

In one moment, throughout the entire galaxy, everything was silent, everything paused in horrified anticipation. In that instant, trillions of ancient souls halted in their profanity, it was a moment of racial wide epiphany; they had seen the dark trails of their wanton indiscretions and foul blasphemous acts had led them to the Precipice at full gallop, they could see now over the edge and cried out in horror knowing that they could not prevent the inevitable descent over the edge.

Slaanesh had come.

The moment afterward was shattered by an orgasmic birth scream of incomprehensible magnitude that shattered the barrier between realities. Countless trillions of eldar souls were sucked into this gaping maw of the Warp to feed this newly ascended force that had risen to join it's three elders. The heart had been torn out of an Empire that had endured for sixty-million years in a single, monstrous, stroke.

Warp storms boiled into the gaps between stars, throwing countless alien realms into anarchy as ties of communication and trade were severed. On uncounted human worlds people possessing strange and unnatural abilities screamed as their minds were overwhelmed and their bodies transformed into portals for endless legions of daemons that swarmed across these doomed worlds and butchered the inhabitants.

An Age of terrible Strife had begun, one that would persist for thousands of years. Mankind would come to forget it's origins; but the Eldar, cursed as they were with long memories would always remember.

On a lifeless world on the other side of the galaxy, sixty-million human souls, the last of a forgotten age slept in blissful ignorance of the damnation sweeping over the galaxy. When they awake, they will find themselves in a nightmare, a galaxy that knows only war.

* * *

A/N: The Precipice chapters are over. Next chapter will bridge into the Grimdark future we all know and love to talk about, but few actually want to visit.


	4. Only War

_It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries_

_the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth._

_He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master_

_of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He_

_is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark_

_Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for_

_whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he_

_may never truly die._

_YET EVEN in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his_

_eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested_

_miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their_

_way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the_

_Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted_

_wolds. Greatest among His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes,_

_the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades_

_in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless Planetary_

_Defense Forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests_

_of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their_

_multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present_

_threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse._

_TO BE A man in such times is to be one amongst untold _

_billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody_

_regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times._

_Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has_

_been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of _

_progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future_

_there is only war. There is no peace among the stars,_

_only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the_

_laughter of thirsting gods._

_UNTIL NOW._

* * *

(Imperial Mining World, Hydra Volantis, Ultima Segmentum, 935 M41)

HYDRA VOLANTIS WAS an unremarkable world all things considered, located in the north-eastern fringe of Ultima Segmentum, it was one of many mining worlds inhabiting the Centaurus Reach, a region on the very edge of Imperial Space located between the fabled Ghoul Stars and the fractious and divided Damocles Gulf. It was composed of three sectors, almost seven-hundred worlds of varying degrees of habitation.

Despite it's obscurity, nearly fifteen million people lived on Hydra Volantis, it's population divided amongst hundreds of isolated mining colonies. Each and every single one of them toiling endlessly to meet their tithe quota set by the Adeptus Administratum, the byzantine bureaucracy that held the Imperium of Man together with mountainous expanses of red tape. The minerals mined here went directly to the Forge Worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus, worlds where the Tech-Priests reigned supreme and the only places in the galaxy where any knowledge concerning the ancient and mostly forgotten art of Science could be found. These worlds were vital to maintaining the Imperium's ever moving war-machine, supporting innumerable campaigns where men fought and died, never to be remembered or celebrated.

Hydra Volantis was nothing more than a footnote on the sector census with two lines dictating population and product output. An easily forgettable dust ball on the edge of nowhere.

But then the Orks came.

They arrived in ships constructed of discarded scraps and converted asteroids. They literally fell upon the world, crashing their crude vessels into the surface, and boiling out shouting their feral warcries. The Hydra Volantis' Planetary Defense Force struggled to mobilize to counter this invasion of xenos, having been caught completely by surprise.

Three townships had fallen in the first week of the invasion, their inhabitants either driven into the wastelands or butchered like cattle in their homes, and in the streets; their brutalized remains hung as trophies upon multitudes of war banners carried into battle by their bestial creators. Panic gripped the once quiet colony as the death count rose, and the greenskin horde waxed in numbers.

The terror spread even further when reports of enormous green beasts bearing iron fortresses on their backs, and flocks of crude fighter craft reached the already quivering ranks of the PDF, whose body had already been weakened by the recent Imperial tithe which stripped it of it's most competent and promising members. The only thing that prevented mass desertion was the sobering fact that there were no ships in orbit to evacuate to, and thus nowhere to run. It was either kill or be killed.

It was in this spirit, that the stalwart but inexperienced PDF confronted the xenos horde.

* * *

"Hold the line damn you! You will _not _embarrass the Imperium by folding to the likes of them!" Roared a PDF captain as he fired his laspistol into the fray as his company fired upon the latest Ork charge threatening to breech their line.

They were tasked with defending the city of Arkistead as it's population evacuated eastwards to a more secure location. They had dug in and fortified the outskirts of the settlement with a haphazard arrangement of trenchworks, not exactly the work of the Krieg Death Korps, but it was adequate for the task. The 3rd Hydra Volantis PDF regiment had arrived in force to cut off this route of invasion, to cut off the xenos taint from tainting more of their home planet with their barbarous footsteps.

The air ran thick with the guttural cries of the enemy, screams of the wounded and dying, and prayers muttered hoarsely between the distinctive cracks of lasgun fire. The PDF was holding, but only just barely. The sound of grinding treads announced the arrival of an antiquated Malcador Heavy Tank. It's hull mounted heavy bolter opened up on the greenskin ranks, stitching gore strewn lines of mass-reactive death into the frenzied mass. The sponson mounted heavy-stubbers also added their clamor to the din of the battlefield.

The captain paused in anticipation as the ancient tank's venerable battle cannon aligned itself in preparation to fire. Even the relentless howls of the xeno forces seemed to quiet. It all came to an end with the tank unleashed a shell downrange with a thunderous report that shook the air like an enraged primal deity. An instant later, a blossom of fire, scorched earth and dust bloomed in the Orks midst, slaying dozens of the foul beasts and scattering their bodies and parts into the air.

"Do not let up! Our world is counting on you, for the Reach!" The captain commanded as he fired a bolt of energy into a frenzied ork's skull as it came close to the trench, it tumbled down to join the other corpses piled upon the breastwork like a gruesome sandbag fortification. But among the dead could be seen smaller human forms wearing the olive-grey flak armor and tan fatigues of the 3rd Hydra Volantis PDF.

The roars of badly tuned engines assaulted his ears, he turned to see a squadron of orkish buggies, their flanks daubed in red paint, and sporting their crude motifs. The Malcador's battle cannon sent them a high explosive welcome package courtesy of the PDF, the shell detonated right in front of the lead buggy, lifting it (and any greenskin unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius), into the air, it's driver hollered out like a professional yodeler as it's blasphemous vehicle somersaulted into the one behind it, both buggies exploded in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics that immolated all nearby orks.

The remaining buggies opened fire on the trench works with shootas and rokkit launchas. Heavy weapons teams hastily redirected their fire to contend with them. Heavy bolter fire tore up one of the buggies. A lascannon beam cleaved another right down the center. Two missiles streaked from the back ranks into the last two buggies, consuming them in balls of fire and shrapnel.

The rest of the horde continued to push towards the Imperial defense line, undaunted by their casualties. They bellowed their excruciatingly repetitive war shout, and charged with their massive cleaver like weapons held high, and their shootas blazing without any regard to accuracy or friendly fire. Las and autogun fire from PDF troopers thinned their ranks, and as soon as they came in range, flamers shot out gouts of burning prometheum to keep them from swarming into the trenches.

The Malcador fired once more, this time at close range, blowing yet another ragged hole in the tide of green flesh and gnashing teeth. The fetid fumes of burning ork bodies began to fill the air that was already unclean with dust and smoke. The captain was glad that he, like all the other PDF soldiers was wearing a respirator to contend with the planet's thin atmosphere.

Despite the odds, the inexperienced soldiers were making a good showing. Many were volunteers, hellbent on saving their world from this implacable and uncompromising foe. Scores of PDF troopers had lost their lives on this terrible campaign, but far more of the enemy had been destroyed in turn.

Even now as the ork ranks thinned, the captain could detect a change coming over the foul xenos; their morale was apparently rooted in strength in numbers, and now that their numbers were whittled down and separated their attack was wavering.

"Don't let them regroup! All units concentrate fire!" He shouted into the local vox net.

He watched more intently now as the ork horde's morale steadily broke down and they turned tail and ran in the other direction.

"Captain Chelkar!" A fresh faced trooper ran up to him, his face stained by soot, and his cheeks tracked by tears shed some time ago, drawn by the realities of war. It's glorious aspects revealed as futile notions, overshadowed by it's horror.

"Messenger, make your report," Captain August Chelkar instructed.

The private blanched for a moment before saying, "Latest word from the recon teams, part of the horde has branched south towards the Panopticon."

Chelkar's face darkened before redirecting his attention to the Orks who were regrouping for another assault.

"Thank you private, return to your post." He said offhandedly, the private saluted shakily before running off down the trench line. For the seventh time today, Chelkar wished his vox operator and the communications kit had not been blown to smithereens three skirmishes ago. But what the private said bothered him.

The Panopticon was a humongous and complex arrangement of ridges formed in a circular shape around a single large conical mountain. The formation was completely unnatural and has long been considered an oddity of the planet. But if the Orks settled in there, it would be nearly impossible to get them out, the Panopticon, if fortified was just one big giant killzone for any invader.

Chelkar glared over the breastwork at his massing enemies. _One battle at a time... _he reminded himself as the men and women of the 3rd PDF once more prepared themselves for renewed confrontation.

August Chelkar held no illusions that the PDF could repel this invasion, the best is could do was hold the line as best it can until an Imperial Guard relief force arrived to prosecute the enemy. But unfortunately, he knew that it could likely be months before the Administratum could dredge up a few regiments and throw them at this easily forgettable ball of rock. That is if they even bothered to send one. For all he knew the Orks could be attacking more strategically vital worlds in the Reach, and in that case Hydra Volantis would most likely be written off. Just another statistic in this Emperor forsaken galaxy. _We need a bloody miracle._

* * *

Deep underground, beneath the geological marvel known to the planet's inhabitants as the Panopticon, an ancient mind stirred to wakefulness as new information brushed across it's dormant consciousness.

_Orkoid lifeforms detected, grid A34, 68, 10. Multiple contacts_

_Threat level escalation. Initiating emergency start-up sequence._

A spark of wakefulness became a fire. A Neuro-AI awoke from deep hibernation, alerted by it's subroutines of an imminent threat to it's survival, and the survival of it's charges.

Quickly, the AI known as Nyx came to full power as it's core processor activated. Nyx was a generation XXIII Neuro-AI, affectionately labeled as a Man of Stone, a nod to the painstaking and time consuming process required to create him, and others like him.

It took a few nanoseconds for Nyx to review all 465 of his contingency orders. He quickly stopped on one.

Contingency Order 66: In the event of an alien invasion of the planet. Revive all security teams and Army, Marines personnel. Appraise situation and await further instructions.

Nyx's runtimes paused for an instant, the digital version of a sigh. He couldn't believe he was saying this stupid line.

_Execute Order 66._

* * *

A/N: MUAHAHAHAHA! I am back bitches! I have defeated the mighty beast known as the Writers Block and proudly present to you this chapter. I am sorry if I made the PDF seem a bit too competent in this chapter, but I wanted to make it clear that this is not going to be a 'curbstomp the evil Imperium' story. The Imperials have stood against uncountable dangers with nothing but their flashlights, T-shirts, and standard-issue balls of steel, and they are not going to fold so easily, not even to their technologically and socially superior 'Ancient' counterparts. In the end this story is going to be almost as much about the Imperials as it will be about the Ancients. Stay tuned for further chapters. _AVE IMPERATOR!_


	5. First Strike

**A/N: Sorry about the short chapter, I'm making up for it with a larger than normal codex update.**

When consciousness returned to Ryan Taylor, he was aware only of the dimly illuminated interior of his cryostasis tube, and the bitter taste in his mouth and throat courtesy of the cryogenic preservative that he had been coated with prior to being frozen. That had only seemed moments ago. His vitals had been reduced to the most minimal state possible, and thus he had not dreamed during that time. Who knew how many centuries he had slept away?

A bowl with a drainage canal in the center extended from a panel to his left, he waited in silent resignation as the most unpleasant part of the reanimation process came over him. A prod emanating a precisely tuned electromagnetic pulse struck him in the small of his back, the effect it had on him was instantaneous. Ryan doubled over in his restraints and vomited a long viscous steam of preservative compound straight into the bowl.

The evacuation bowl retracted back into the side panel, and the illuminators inside the tube slowly brightened. The hatch then slid open, revealing the cryo bay beyond it. When the restraints slid away, Ryan slowly emerged from his tube, every muscle in his body ached and he felt very lethargic. Cryosleep for any amount of time often produced feelings of weakness and discomfort upon waking, but this bout of stasis sickness was much more pronounced than he had ever felt before. Again it begged to question how long he had been in that tube.

All around him, other people were crawling out of their tubes, or heading for the showers to wash off the cryo-preservative that remained on their bodies. All of them looked as weak and disoriented as he felt. As his hearing fully returned the blaring sound of an alarm reached his ears. It was a call for combat readiness, which meant trouble.

Ignoring his discomfort, Ryan double-timed it to the showers, where he waited his turn to be doused in a cold soapy spray, and quickly cleaned off with a sonic wave. He then returned to his stasis tube where a simple grey jumpsuit and a pair of boots was waiting for him.

After quickly dressing, he joined the stream of people trying to get to their duty stations.

Rapture City was not designed with rapid deployment in mind. It would take weeks for everything to be fully squared away. From the cavernous stasis-sealed armory blocks filled with highly sophisticated military hardware, vehicles, aircraft, and the towering war-machines of the Titan Corps; and don't forget the thousands of entombed warships, some of which could count as spacefaring cities.

For now it was the infantry's show.

Ryan took a massive high-occupancy express lift to the armory blocks where all the Marines and Army troopers would be suiting up for a possible confrontation with whatever could have happened upon the subterranean mega-structure. Heck the site above ground was hardly inconspicuous, especially with those ridiculous mountain formations. What was the Corps of Engineers thinking?

At any rate, trouble had come to their doorstep. He was going to face it head on.

* * *

The various leaders of the Federation Enclave quickly assembled in the Conference Room which was located adjacent to the Command Center. All of them were clearly suffering from a stronger than usual case of stasis sickness, nothing that a few stimms and a few hours of actual sleep could not remedy.

"Fifteen-thousand years," a man wearing the uniform of an Army general said, breaking the silence that had followed the revelation of their current situation. Fleet Admiral Kerensky, the chairman of the Enclave was still silent. He too was shocked, they had greatly overshot their intended date set in the late 30th Millennium. The implications this made for their reclamation schedule were daunting to say the least.

And that was what was the unspoken question on everyone's mind; was the mission still viable? The date had been chosen due to the fact that by then, the miasma of warp storms would have ebbed away allowing for real-time FTL communications, and general use of warp travel. Also humanity would have been sufficiently weak and disorganized around that time to gather up under a single banner with manageable difficulty. But with so much time having past...

"This changes nothing," said Keeper, the head of the Office of Strategic Intelligence. Nobody knew his real name. But he was easily the most dangerous individual in the room. "We have scarified too much to stop now."

"I am inclined to agree," Admiral Kerensky said, "But that can wait, for now we have an Ork infestation to deal with; Nyx draw up the map."

Light covered the surface of the circular table, and a realistic holographic image of the terrain above Rapture City appeared, numbered tags indicated the positions of buried ships, and hidden entrances. White lines pointed out the underground tunnel network, yellow ones the immense powerlines that connected to the antimatter reactor deep within the City.

The image was a live feed from a SpySat probe that had been launched into orbit by a graviton catapult minutes after the discovery of Orks on the planet.

The Orks themselves appeared as a red blob approaching from the north. Their lines were loose and disorganized.

"I suggest a nuclear strike, it will buy us more time to prepare," a general stated. Nuclear weapons were a very old technology, but they were still very useful, and relatively cheap compared to WMD's of similar caliber and had a long shelf life.

"The flash would act as a beacon and only excite the orks in the long run," Kerensky replied, "The use of seismic weapons will be more effective to our purposes."

Seismic weapons, despite the name did not cause earthquakes, instead they created a destructive sonic pulse of intense magnitude that shattered anything caught in the blast radius. On the plus side they also did not produce lingering side effects like radiation fall out as in Nukes and antimatter bombs, or thinning the veil between the Warp and Realspace as Vortex ordnance would do.

"Nyx, what is the current status of our forces?" Tarson asked.

"Eight Army infantry companies have assembled and are awaiting orders, three Marine companies are also prepared. The Titan Corps reports that the Castigator Titans _Liberty Prime_ and _Eisen Kaiser, _Nephelem Titans _Strider Foxtrot, Midsummer Knight, Dangerous Intent, _and _Nemesis King _will be ready for deployment inside the hour. Everything else is in the process of being mustered, and ABACOS has achieved limited functionality."

Kerensky nodded, "Not enough to take on the greenskins, Nyx send our new incomers a welcome package, three level 2 payloads ought to do it."

"I've already begun," the AI stated with a hint of amused inflection in it's voice.

* * *

In between the Panopticon's outer ridge lines, a powerful explosion forced away the earth like a ripple in water; revealing several meters below, a metal surface slightly tarnished by time was visible. Three dilating hatches hissed open, three large anti-shipping seismic torpedoes elevated through the openings. One after another, they shot roaring out of the tubes riding on long tails of blue ion exhaust plumes before steadily arcing northwards toward their intended target.

* * *

The Orkish army sent to occupy the distant Panopticon was rushing towards it's objective with no regard to order or cohesion. Buggies, looted tanks, and wartrukks raced ahead of the greenskins running on foot literally trampling the smaller gretchin underfoot.

"Eh? Wots dat up in da sky?" One Nob said. As if a switch had been flicked, nearly half the horde looked up to see the three trails of vaporized air coming towards them. It was the only warning they had.

The first seismic torpedo struck the earth, and detonated with the sound of a million thunderclaps going off in unison that rent the very air asunder. The earth bucked and split violently underneath the boots of the aliens, sending them skyward as the harmonic shockwave reduced immense boulders to dust, and tore vehicles to shreds; ear drums imploded, ruined eyes popped out of skulls, green hides split open and sloughed off shattered bones, internal organs turned to paste as everything in a thirty mile radius was completely destroyed, and pieces of debris numbering in the trillions was scattered over an ever wider area at the speed of sound.

The second torpedo hit the horde in the center, wiping millions of greenskins off the face of the planet in an instant.

The third struck the final prong of orks, adding to the chaos and devastation created by it's two predecessors.

When the dust slowly cleared, a wide flattened expanse of churned up terrain extending more than a hundred kilometers in either direction around three small craters was all that was left of the orks, everything had been obliterated and buried under tons of dirt and sand. Nothing had survived the Federation's first strike.

* * *

**Codex: Ancients**

"_It was a vast monster that knew no equal, looking at it as it fired on our position was like looking over the lip of an erupting volcano, everything we threw at it either bounced off it's invincible skin or scuffed up the paint, the only way to survive it is to not be there when it comes. Emperor have mercy on us." _-Lieutenant Jaskon Price, 303rd Vendoland. Executed for scaremongering.

M33 Baneblade: The M33 Baneblade Super-Heavy Tank is one of the pinnacle achievements of Consolidated Dynamics Land Systems, combining a formidable balance of the properties of speed, durability, and firepower. _Anything _short of a titan will suffer critical existence failure upon entering it's line of sight.

It is superior to the Mars-pattern Baneblade in nearly every category, only the fabled and rare Fellblade super-heavy tank can hope to compete with the Federation Army's primary super-heavy vehicle. The very appearance of the M33 has prompted several Forge Worlds to actually share STC data with one another in an attempt to restart Fellblade production to counter this threat, among many others the Federation has unleashed upon the battlefields of the Eastern Fringe.

A full third larger than it's Mars-Pattern hillbilly cousin, the M33 Baneblade is notable for featuring a four-track design, each mounted on an independent, modular, computer-controlled suspension system, which allow for deft maneuvering around large debris and other obstacles. Thanks to it's cold-fusion reactor technology, the range of the M33 is not measured in kilometers, but decades.

The super-heavy tank's primary armament is it's turret-mounted twin-linked rail guns. Immense eleven-meter-long cannons capable of projecting football sized projectiles at speeds exceeding mach 20. The devastating power of these cannons produce almost no recoil, and can only be heard as a dull thud inside the tank thanks to multiple layers of advanced acoustic dampening material.

The M33's secondary armaments consist of a pair of hull-mounted twin-linked rotary plasma cannons for cutting down infantry, and hardpoints on the side of each track pod, each one with a twin-linked rotary plasma cannon, and a Particle Projector Cannon. Each of the side-mounted rotary cannons has a 150 degree horizontal, and 45 degree vertical angle of fire, though the four PPC's mounted atop the track pods, have a wider horizontal range of 270 degrees. All secondary weapons draw energy directly from the powerplant, allowing them to fire indefinitely so long as they don't malfunction. Finally a pair of 2x3 smart missile launchers are mounted on either side of the turret, for shooting down airborne targets or destroying enemies hiding behind obstructions.

Wrapped in layers of Adamantium and Metaplas coated in a reflective/ablative matrix bolstered by atomantic field technology, the M33 is among the most well-protected vehicles ever to be deployed into the warzones of the 41st Millenium; it can survive countless weapon impacts which would reduce other tanks to a molten pile of slag. Nothing short of a Shadowsword's Volcano Cannon, or repeated hits from a Stormblade's Plasma Blastgun is capable of taking this massive tank out of commission in a timely fashion. Although it should be noted that the M33 hosts limited self-repair functionality, further increasing it's longevity.

Many of the sophisticated technologies which go into producing the M33 are long forgotten or completely unrealized by the Adeptus Mechanicus. The tank is packed with advanced sensor gear, such as tachyon detectors that are capable of piercing the Holofields utilized by Eldar vehicles. High-precision targeting arrays, and remote optics allow the commander an unobstructed view of the battlefield. Advanced FTL communications equipment allows for communication anywhere up to a few Astronomical Units and uplink with ABACOS, and if a relay is nearby, the entire Federation CommNet which links to every planet, ship, and space station in Federation Space in real-time.

Length: 16.5m

Width: 13.4m

Height: 7.2m

* * *

"_These are without a doubt one of the most vicious weapons I have ever encountered, an entire Terminator squad had been brought down by one squad-support level weapon in seconds. Their screams of agony as they were cooked alive inside their own revered plate haunts me still to this day, and my hearts yearn evermore for vengeance."- _Brother Sergeant Emil Nyran. Sternguard of the Ultramarines First Company. Killed by a Volkite weapon ten years later.

Volkite Weapons: In a nutshell, they are martian deathrays. Volkite weapons are based on the principal of imparting so much heat the target that he/she/it literally bursts into flames inside their armor. These flaming victims then proceed to cause more damage to their own squad, as they run around screaming while emitting the temperature of a large and unwieldy furnace. The primary drawback is that they are considered short-ranged, although not to the same extent as Melta weaponry.

The Imperium in the glory days of the Great Crusade, had enough of these things to equip every single Space Marine Legionnaire with them. But as the Crusade grew older, demand overtook supply and the Volkite guns were relegated to 'special weapons' status. And when the Horus Heresy came to Mars, leading to the defection of large parts of the Mechanicum. Add ten-thousand years of technological stagnation, the knowledge of how to repair and maintain these fearsome weapons gradually disappeared from the galaxy.

When the Ancients returned, they brought these weapons with them, and utilized them to great and terrible effect, using them in the same way other races use flamer weapons.

* * *

"_You do not understand, Inquisitor. We are not trapped in your world; you are now trapped in ours," _-Fleet Admiral Tarson Kerensky. Federation Commander in Chief.

ABACOS: The Advanced BAttlefield COntrol System. Or simply Abacus. Is the pinnacle of the Battlefield Revolution which occurred in the 18th Millennium during mankind's first wars against alien powers. Humanity won these conflicts due to an astonishing level of tactical coordination that only the warhosts of the Eldar craftworlds have been able to match.

With the advent of the Iron Men, human participation in warfare became redundant, as did the technologies that allowed humanity to achieve such high operational tempo.

When the Iron Men turned on humanity, ABACOS was brought back, and given an upgrade.

The ABACOS network is designed to collect and sort every iota of information from the lowest ranking soldier and his weapons, to the colossal super-capital ships of the Federation Navy. It is operated by several dedicated tactical AI (Men of Stone) who process the information into a format that can be used by military commanders to monitor and enhance the performance of all soldiers deployed in combat.

ABACOS serves three main functions. The first is to allow multiple members of a military unit to maintain a technopathic link to one another through their neural implants and work more efficiently as a team. ABACOS basically runs this unit like a network of computers, allowing it to rapidly coordinate tactics. This provides a massive tactical advantage to the Federation Defense Forces.

The second function is to monitor the chemical balance of every soldier engaged in combat. This allows the neural implants to induce an artificial combat high by managing the release of adrenaline and endorphins, elevating the senses and accuracy of every soldier. One's sense of pain is also subject to the same treatment, preventing minor injuries from distracting a soldier in combat.

The third main function of ABACOS is to monitor and control the use of weapons, vehicles, and equipment on the battlefield and in space. As every weapon and vehicle is ID locked, only authorized individual soldiers can use that particular weapon. It also prevents soldiers from firing on their own and committing human rights abuses. ABACOS governs all small arms and ammunition, as well as vehicles such as gunships and tanks. It does not however govern titans, FTL capable ships, and Weapons of Mass Destruction, these are locked for usage on a higher-authority system, more specifically one keyed to high ranking officers and the Federation President in the case of Weapons of Total Destruction, ie Exterminatus grade weapons.

ABACOS does have weaknesses though, severing the link at the source will make the entire system invalid, to mitigate this risk the neural implants will give a soldier unlimited access to all weapons and equipment, soldiers are also drilled vigorously in coping with the loss of ABACOS were such an event to occur. The only power known to be able to remotely block ABACOS are the Necrons.

Lately a system derived from ABACOS is being used by federal law enforcement on various planets. Coining the phrase, 'What one officer knows, they all know,' making police corruption completely non-existent. It's like the NPC guards in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, (STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM! YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW!) In the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium, there is no privacy.


End file.
